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So these jeans have been finished a while now, I just haven’t had the desire to blog about them. Don’t get me wrong, I like them, but they don’t fit quite right now thanks to me dropping a few kgs. So, I fell a bit out of love with them. Anyway, here’s the last piece to their story.

There was so much frankenpatterning on this garment I ended up like a crazy, multiple personalitied person…

Then there was a calico created, and a calico adjusted. Unsurprisingly there was waaaaaaaay too much room in the leg of these pants – even with the wide legged look I was going for. This was rectified with some quick cutting. The photo below shows what was cut off and then transferred back to the pattern. Like my floral ‘calico’? I got a bolt for equivalent $2 p/m at Spotlight – bargain! 😉

There’s also a whole lot of drafting that’s gone on up top.

Pockets

The back of the pockets (side pieces) were re-drafted in to two pieces to avoid uncomfortable bulk in the pocket bag. So now, they’re denim up top and cotton down below. You might recognise the pretty floral cotton from my Happy homemade shirred tunic. Also, the shape of pockets was changed – bringing the entrance up higher – clearly a very technical description 🙂

Pocket facings

These have also been re-drafted. You can see below shown with pink dotted lines how the pocket was reshaped, and also the whole pocket facing changed. The facing will now join up to centre front, this should help to keep the pocket back in place and not scrunching up. The front pocket bag is shown with the blue dotted line too.

Enough about that – let me now introduce the finished product:

Some notes:

Belt loops: If you’re going to go down the path of v8774 watch the belt loops. If I had my time again I’d make them thinner. Just personal preference.

Belt loops: Also, for some unknown reason the pattern has you put the side back belt loops joining to the top of the waistband down to the bottom yolk seam… weird. I blindly followed the instructions without thinking and then had to cut them out of the yolk and reposition the bottom of the loop to the bottom of the waistband. What. the.

Fly: I had never made a fly before. I didn’t really have any dramas which was nice! Only change I made was instead of bias binding it, I just overlocked the edge.

Buttonhole: The worst bit of these was the freaking buttonhole!!! It would just not do what it was told!!! Fabric wasn’t feeding properly, stitches were all over the place, I had to unpick the thing something like four times! What was more frustrating is that on two layers of interfaced denim, testing the buttonhole, it worked perfectly, every goddam time!!! GAH! Oh well, the buttonhole eventually got there and the jeans have a keyhole shaped buttonhole now.

Pin tucks: Those pretty lines on all the pockets are just super tiny pin tucks. Length was measured and drawn straight on with tailors chalk. Taken from my inspiration jeans.

So that’s it. My new jeans. What do you think? Have you made a garment and straight away filed it under ‘meh’?

So, I have started drafting, getting creative with, or whatever you want to call it, the pattern for my upcoming jeans.

As mentioned, I had already traced off V8774 (both A and B versions), so on Saturday it was down to getting busy with scissors, masking tape, measuring tape and rulers.

I decided to hack up version B, the boot leg, rather than the straight – for purely lazy reasons – I might want to make a straight leg in the future and I don’t see a boot leg in my future. So I have saved the tracing of version A (straight leg) for, who knows when really?!

Here’s a picture of the back as it stands right now –

I usually have to lengthen in both leg and crotch, so I’ve already made those adjustments to test with the toile, and I’ve attached the yoke making it all one piece (TBC whether this will continue this way yet – seemed like a good idea at the time, but I think I’ll add it back in as a separate piece). You’ll also see obviously that the leg was slashed up the middle. I spread it 5cm, pivoting out from the top and then straightened down to the hem to give me the more wide leg look I’m going for here.

And here’s the front –

I still need to edit the pocket area, but you get the picture 🙂 You’ll also see that the curve down the inside leg has been kept.

These pieces very scribbly, but trust me, I know what the lines mean (well I did at the time, I hope I remember!).

So, hopefully (fingers crossed!!) I get to have a crack at these this coming weekend and see what happens. Note to self – must alter waistband to match too.

Z xx

PS – I have a long weekend coming my way. Needless to say, I’m excited 🙂

PPS – That dastardly Beignet is finished!!!! My average button sewing time was 5 minutes. Photos to come.

I’ve wanted to try out making some jeans for a little while now, but after seeing Poppykettle’s delightful Turquoise Terror Jeans, I knew they had to be moved up the list of ‘to do’ projects.

My inspiration lies with Sass and Bide‘s Rabbit Boy jeans – I had a pair quite some years ago now, and I LOVED them and wore them to death! Literally. To. Death. They were stitched up a few times, but eventually they left this world. You can see a good pic of the Rabbit Boy style on missea, about halfway down the page.

I’m using the below denim from Darn Cheap Fabrics – eventually (sorry about the dodgy photo). I wouldn’t hold your breath on these ones though folks. I still have to finalize that darn Beignet, then I imagine there’ll be a bit of drafting and testing before I even get to cut these bad girls out.

On my sewing table

- Colette Sorbetto
- Bombshell dress

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